


In the Sanctuary of Lies

by SemperIntrepida



Series: Elegiad [10]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Playthrough, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, a slight divergence from canon but we'll get to the same place in the end, i only hurt the characters i love, where deimos goes dark subjects follow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:21:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22079122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SemperIntrepida/pseuds/SemperIntrepida
Summary: In which Myrrine searches for someone who can save her son, and Kassandra searches for someone in Argolis who can tell her the truth of the past.
Series: Elegiad [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531004
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	In the Sanctuary of Lies

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot is part of a linked series of stories, and while you don't have to read them all, they do combine into a unified narrative.

The night of her first death, it was the smell that led her to the bodies piled high at the foot of the cliff. Putrid and oppressive, it nearly forced her to her knees, and even the rain — a cold, hard rain that turned the stone around her an oily black — couldn't wash it out of the air. But she could not stop, not even to retch. She had to find them. Both of them.

She stumbled in the dark, threw her arms out and felt her hands sink into rotting ooze. She looked back at her feet and saw the cooling body of the Elder priest, his head cracked open across the rocks like a bloody egg.

Ahead of her, rain pooled in the upturned cup of an infant's skull. A flash of lightning turned the bone stark white against grey, followed moments later by a thunderclap that left her ears ringing with Zeus's anger. She scrambled on hands and knees across a table set with a feast for vultures, surrounded by stone and bones and those long dead.

But no Kassandra. No Alexios. She couldn't find them.

Her children. Her babies.

Her heart constricted in her chest, squeezing the life out of the hope that had driven her to search the bottom of the cliff. She couldn't find them. They were gone. They were—

Shouts in the distance. The Elders, looking for her after she'd torn herself from their grasping hands, away from them and away from Ni— _No._ Her mind put a blank where his name had been. The time to hate was later.

She almost missed the whimper, barely louder than the rain and the strangled beats of her heart. Where? Her eyes swept the dark rocks around her, the piles of white bones up ahead, and then the world went white with another lightning bolt and she saw a white shape in a jumbled nest of rib bones. Her heart boomed with the thunder, and she crawled to the bones and brushed her fingers against a blanket she had touched a thousand times.

Alexios. She drew his face to her cheek and felt a whisper of breath, but his skin was so, so cold and he hardly moved.

More shouting. Close now, along with the orange glow of torches.

Kassandra was here, somewhere on these stones, someplace in the dark, but if she stayed and kept looking, the Elders would find her and Alexios, and they'd kill him for sure. Lose one or lose both. Her choice to make.

She tucked Alexios against her bosom and hurried away from the cliff, and part of her soul left her body and died there on those dark stones, the part that had entwined itself around her daughter the moment she knew the gods had blessed her with a child. She had done the unforgivable by giving up on her daughter, and one day she would stand before the gods and answer for it.

The forest underbrush tore at her skirt, and she ducked her head under tree limbs and climbed over fallen trunks. Tree bark and branches scraped her skin but she didn't feel pain. She was soaked through but she didn't feel cold. The rain continued to fall in sheets, but the lightning storm faded along with the shouts of those who pursued her.

She didn't know how she made her way down from the mountain through that dark forest, only that there were lights in the distance ahead, and she recognized them as Pitana, the helot village on the far outskirts of Sparta.

Alexios did not stir, and he was still so cold that despite her fears of injuring him further, she paused and unwrapped him from his blanket and tucked him inside her dress next to her skin. No one in Sparta was skilled enough to help him, even if they were willing to disobey the Elders. The healers in Argolis were her only option, she realized, choking back despair as she calculated the distance. Days away by foot. Faster by horse, if she had one.

If. She set her jaw and moved as swiftly as she could across the muddy wheat fields that ringed the village, avoiding the huts and hovels until she reached the road to Sparta. She'd be safe on the roads as long as she stayed ahead of the messengers of the priests, but she could not risk running into any soldiers in the city. Her home was lost to her now. All she had left in the world was Alexios.

She kept moving, coming to the crossroads where the northern and eastern roads met. There was a kapeleion here, she knew, a squat building from which firelight and drunken laughter escaped. And just outside, a few horses picketed at the fence. She swallowed hard, straightened her shoulders, and walked up to a sturdy-looking gelding. Heart pounding, she untied his lead, swung herself onto the saddle with Alexios cradled against her, and rode off into the night. King Leonidas's daughter Myrrine, reduced to a common thief.

She rode the horse harder than she had any right to, until his flanks were coated in lather and he could no longer keep up a gallop, and as the sun rose, she stopped at the river on the border with Argolis and let him drink deep while she cradled Alexios in her arms.

He was dying.

She mounted the horse, urged him forward. The city of Argos up the road, help up ahead, and Alexios against her breast, so very, very, still.

.oOo.

It seemed to Kassandra that all roads in Argolis pointed to the clinic of Hippokrates of Argos, nestled as it was in the foothills above the city. The clouds wrapped the mountaintops in fluffy grey wool, and it had rained steadily all morning, foul weather leading to foul moods.

Raised voices greeted her at the clinic's doorstep. An older woman, sharply berating a young man. "Look, you insignificant peon. Tell me where he is, or by Hera I'll burn this clinic to the ground with you in it!"

He raised his hands, trying to placate her. "I already told you what I know."

"If Hippokrates thinks he can disrupt social order to make himself into a demigod of healing, perhaps the gods themselves will have their revenge." The woman took a step towards him, and Kassandra could see her arm coiling back, ready to strike.

Kassandra was already stepping into the frame. "Back away from the boy. Slowly," she said.

Now the woman's fury focused on her. "Who dares threaten the Priestess of Hera?"

"Me." Kassandra crossed her arms and moved in close, close enough to emphasize just how far down she had to look to stare into the woman's eyes. "Now step back."

The woman narrowed her eyes, zealot eyes that danced at the edge of madness, and for a moment Kassandra thought she might try something stupid. But then she drew herself up with wounded dignity and said to the young man, "It seems the gods wish me to grant you and your master another chance. Tell Hippokrates that if he doesn't make a public show of respect to the gods, I'll raise an army of believers against him. And if he can't think of a suitable offering, his head will do." Then she pushed her way between them and stormed off.

By the gods, were all priestesses of Hera like this?

"Thank Asklepios she's gone," the young man said. "I thought she was going to kill me this time."

"Who are you, and what was all that about?" Kassandra asked.

"I'm Sostratos," he said. "Chrysis has accused my master Hippokrates of impiety."

"Is he?"

"He believes that beyond praying, people can take their health into their own hands and make themselves well."

That seemed reasonable. After all, it was easier to stab someone with her spear than wait for one of Zeus's thunderbolts to strike them down for her. "Fascinating. Can I speak with him?"

"I'm sorry, he isn't here."

"Then where can I find him?"

"He's gone to Hera's Watch to help the sick there." She could find him if she traveled to the southeast and looked for the end of a long line of desperate people. And did she mind delivering these medical supplies that he'd forgotten in his haste?

When it came to finding her mother, nothing would ever be simple.

She tied the bag of supplies to the back of her saddle and mounted Phobos. Above her stretched woolly skies in every direction. It would be a cold, wet ride to Hera's Watch.

.oOo.

The first person Myrrine encountered in Argos took one look at Alexios and pointed her to Hippokrates's clinic, as did the second person, and the next. She had never been to Argos, and needed to keep asking the way through the blurry maze of houses and temples that surrounded her.

Right at the walnut tree. Left at the statue of Apollo. Follow the fence up the hill to the path through the laurel grove. She slumped forward, weary from riding all night, her horse valiantly keeping up a trot. He'd given her everything he could and still she asked for more.

They left the canopy of laurels and entered a cluster of low buildings with stucco walls, the grounds swept and tidy.

A young man emerged from the building at the sound of hoofbeats in the courtyard, his eyes widening as he caught sight of her. A golden pendant of a snake wrapped around a rod hung from his neck, the sign of the priests of Asklepios, and the last of her energy drained out of her as she realized she had made it to the clinic. She sagged bonelessly in the saddle, and he hurried to her, his hands gentle as he helped her to the ground.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She held Alexios out to him. "My son," was all she could say before her throat closed around the rest of her words.

A glance at the infant in his arms was enough to cause him to hurry. "Come in, come in," he said, leading her into the building. A woman stood in the corner, tending a brazier. "Ortygia, take care of this woman, please." Then he retreated to a back room, carrying Alexios away from her sight.

Her heart raced and she slipped towards panic, but the woman suddenly appeared at her side, gently taking her by the elbow and preventing her from following him. "You're freezing," the woman said. "Come and sit."

Myrrine let herself be guided to a bench next to a burning brazier. Its warmth seemed far away. Her exhaustion made everything feel cold and distant, inert like a pile of ashes. She wanted to sleep and not wake up until Alexios was whole again.

She felt a warm cup being pressed into her hands. "Drink this." Hot wine and herbs. She sipped, tasting nothing. That wasn't right. Sipped again. Nothing. She could no longer trust her senses. The heat from the wine crawled down her chest and thawed something inside, and the meltwater began leaking from her. She closed her eyes against the tears. No. Not now.

After some time, Hippokrates emerged from the back room carrying Alexios, and she knew in an instant that he would not bring her good news. He knelt before her and placed a hand on her knee. "Your son..." His voice wavered, and he shook his head. "This is beyond my abilities as a healer."

She could die kneeling in the middle of a field of ashes, or she could dig, dig down into those cinders. She heard her own voice, steady as it said, "If you can't save him, tell me who can." Warmth under her hands, the smallest embers.

"He's too—"

Embers to flame, her voice raising. "Tell me who can!"

Her tone made him flinch. "The priests at the Sanctuary of Asklepios." He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.

"How do I get there?"

He told her. Placed Alexios into her arms. Helped her to her feet, wrapped her in a blanket, and brought her to her horse. She took up the reins, turned the horse towards the road that led to the Sanctuary, and heard him call out behind her, "Gods be with you both."

Which gods? The ones who told the Oracle in Delphi that Alexios would bring about the downfall of Sparta, thus condemning him to be thrown from a cliff?

There were no gods left for her to trust.

.oOo.

Kassandra stared at the dead man in the cot and shook her head in frustration. All that effort in Fort Tiryns — sneaking past the soldiers, finding the garrison's physician, and bringing him back to Hippokrates — had amounted to nothing.

"I'm sorry for the delay, Hippokrates," Dymas said. "Kassandra helped me save my own patient first."

She'd had to choose: wait for Dymas to finish his surgery, or force him to come with her unwillingly. She'd decided to wait, and it had been the same as picking one life over another. Dymas's patient had survived. This man didn't.

"But why are you here?" Hippokrates asked. "I only needed my notes."

"They were burned in an attack, but fortunately, I have them memorized." Dymas tapped a finger against his temple. "And Kassandra insisted I come with her."

Hippokrates turned to her. "Did you kill anyone to bring Dymas here?"

Anyone? Did he mean the entire fort full of soldiers he'd asked her to sneak into? It took effort to keep her voice neutral. "No." She'd slipped past every sentry without any of them raising an alarm, and she'd done it as quickly as she could. It hadn't been enough.

Hippokrates rested a hand on Dymas's shoulder. "All of us are in the business of making tough decisions. You saved one soul today, and many others to come."

Dymas nodded. "If we're finished here, I'll write down what I remember of your notes."

Kassandra watched him hurry off, then said to Hippokrates, "I won't keep you from your work any longer, doctor. I'll go ask the priests at the Sanctuary about the woman I seek."

He gestured for her to follow and said, "Come with me. You've had a busy day."

They walked inside a large tent, its interior crowded with tables of medical equipment and racks of herbs. It smelled faintly of spices she couldn't place. A large bowl of fruit sat next to a pitcher of water, and he grabbed an apple off the top and tossed it to her. "The importance of diet to maintaining one's health cannot be overstated."

Kassandra looked at the apple in her hand. "What good can one apple really do?"

"Well, taken daily, they can keep the doctor away." The smile in his voice faded. "But on to more serious matters, like the reason you're here. You're looking for your mother."

She'd never been that specific when talking to him.

His gaze roamed across her face. "You have your mother's eyes," he explained.

"Ah." Her chest suddenly ached.

"I've never forgotten her face." He leaned back against a table and sighed. "I was young then, and I didn't have the skills to help her. I turned her away." He looked down at his hands. "I'd... given people bad news before. But your mother... She burned with determination when others would have collapsed into their grief. She shamed me."

"How?"

"Before I met her, I was just a priest. After, I swore to Apollo that I'd never turn away another patient — that I'd dedicate my life to learning everything I could about healing, even the things the other priests refused to try." He was silent for a moment, thinking of the past. "She had a strength about her that left an impression on me."

"She'd be happy to know that."

"I sent your mother to the Sanctuary of Asklepios. They'll have votive records of her visit, but you should try to get an audience with the Elder priest. Tell him I'll be sending him my notes on a new treatment for the sacred disease."

She bowed her head and clasped her hands together in gratitude. "Thank you for this, Hippokrates."

Her mother had spoken to this man, had been here and traveled these same roads, and for a brief moment she'd come to life in his telling. Hippokrates had brought Kassandra closer to her mother than anyone else had, just by remembering her.

.oOo.

The Sanctuary of Asklepios was less a refuge than a place where misery fed upon the living, who drifted like spirits within the shrines and buildings, caught between life and death. Myrrine was one of them now. She'd delivered Alexios into the care of the priests, had allowed herself to be bathed and fed, before being turned out to wander the Sanctuary's grounds until the priests brought her news.

She found a bench in a quiet corner near a fountain, away from the crowds on the walkways. The leaves of an olive tree shivered above her, and the Sanctuary swirled with nervous winds under grey skies. It had not yet begun to rain.

The people around her were silent as they dwelled in their own private worlds, and the fountain's lively waters poured into its basin, indifferent to them all. The basin was ringed by a grooved path worn deep into the stones. Heavy were the worries that burdened all those footsteps.

Every so often a priest would stop by to update her on Alexios's condition, and they spoke words she only half-heard, reassuring words meant to distract her from noticing that they never said he was getting better.

It was growing harder to keep her hope alive. Even embers ran out of fuel to burn eventually.

She paced the perimeter of the fountain's small square. The priests had placed large marble slabs around the edge, making a fence of sorts. Names were carved into the slabs: _Agestratus, whose head ached so severely it drove him to madness, cured by applying a poultice of a rooster's tail feathers; Euphanes, suffering from bloat, cured by sacrificing ten dice and his gambling habit on the temple altar._ Sometime soon, a priest would strike a mallet to his chisel and inscribe the names _Myrrine_ and _Alexios_ on the stone. She wondered what the words next to them would say.

Day turned to night, the moon hiding behind clouds that spat a fitful rain. She found herself alone next to the fountain. Most of the Sanctuary's visitors had retired to places she didn't know, and didn't care to. She had no need for a bed and no willingness to sleep.

Then she heard her name in the dark, spoken by a priest she didn't know. He was older than the others, and wore his pendant of Asklepios on a necklace of heavy gold. Mydon was his name, he said, and that he was sorry, deeply sorry — and his mouth kept moving and words came out but she didn't understand them. Words like "The fall was devastating..." and "There's nothing we can do..." and as long as she had hope, none of them would make any sense.

But he kept talking, and as he did, her hope faded to nothing, and she knew then what the priest was trying to tell her: Alexios was dead.

Then it felt as though her bones had turned to water, and she sank down to the ground as the last of the embers inside her went out. She broke into sobs, hunching over as they swept through her. "They're gone. They're both gone," she said between gasps, and then she cried out, her voice twisting into a dark howl.

The priest didn't move.

She sat there in the silence left after her wail. Inert like ashes.

Then she spoke to the stones beneath her, so worn with burdens. "Show me."

He helped her to her feet, let her lean on him as he guided her into the temple, past haggard young priests and a priestess, back to a room, and a table, and her son's motionless form.

The other part of her soul left her then. She had lost both Kassandra and Alexios, and only the barest of threads remained for the Fates to weave within her. No mother ever expected to outlive her children; their ghosts would pursue her like the Erinyes until the end of her days, but oh, she was too proud to go mad. She would exist, and she would be both alive and dead within the same body.

She picked Alexios up, cradled him in her arms, and began to sing him a song.

.oOo.

Kassandra arrived at the Sanctuary of Asklepios at dawn, under skies of broken slate streaked with red. Harbinger skies, and if she were back on the Adrestia, Barnabas would have taken one look at them and declared a storm was on its way.

The Sanctuary was nearly silent, save for the footsteps of priests hurrying to the temple, or abaton, or wherever else they needed to go across the expansive grounds. She caught one by his elbow as he tried to pass, but he looked at her, stammered, "I'm sorry Eagle Bearer, I can't help you," and scurried away.

Her reputation had apparently preceded her.

The next few priests said much the same thing, and she finally lost her temper with the last, dragging him into the shadows between two outbuildings before pinning him up against a wall with her forearm. "Who told you not to talk to me?" she demanded.

"Chrysis. She said it would be our heads if we talked to the Eagle Bearer."

Chrysis, the priestess she'd met in Argos. "How is it that she rules over the Sanctuary?"

His eyes widened. "She's the High Priestess of Hera in Argolis!"

So this Chrysis had power to go with her madness. "I need to see the Elder priest."

"Please, Eagle Bearer. She'll have me killed."

"Talk. Now."

"Find Mydon. He has quarters in the guesthouse. But good luck getting a word out of him — he no longer has a tongue."

She released him. "Go."

Priests without tongues and priestesses out for blood. This was a Sanctuary in name only, and time would tell how deep the sickness ran within it.

She returned to the walkway. It was warmer now, though the sun remained reluctant to come out, and when she breathed in, she smelled rain-damp soil and smoky incense. The grounds were more crowded, and a steady stream of horse-drawn carts wheeled past, carrying the ill and the infirm to the abaton and baths. White marble blocks lined the paved path on both sides, their smooth faces inscribed with names and treatments. Votive records, just as Hippokrates had said. But there were hundreds of these blocks, covered in thousands of names with no sense of organization. Finding her mother's name would take days.

She continued wandering, taking in the layout of the walkways, and the locations of the temples, shrines, and other buildings within the grounds. Her path took her from the Temple of Asklepios at the Sanctuary's core, to the outer edges, where the stone buildings were less worn and the trees were smaller and the marble blocks lining the path held fewer names and more blank spaces. Then she heard the sound of a chisel on stone, and followed it around a corner to its source.

An older priest stood at a marble block, carving another name into the Sanctuary's records. He pretended not to notice her, instead leaning close to his work and brushing stone dust away with his hand.

She stopped an armspan's distance away from him. She could pretend also, and she regarded the stone block in front of her without seeing. "If one wanted to find a particular name on these stones, how would they do it?" she mused.

"They'd have to ask a priest who keeps the records."

"A priest such as yourself?"

His fingers stilled on the carved letters. "There are countless records in this Sanctuary. Surely I'm too feeble to remember them all."

"It's a shame. I've traveled here a long way in search of my mother, and all I find are priests too afraid to talk to me."

"Times have changed, Eagle Bearer. It's..." He lowered his voice. "Chrysis. She says she'll kill anyone who helps you, and her threats are not idle."

"Just tell me where I can find the stone that holds the name _Myrrine of Sparta_. That's all I need."

He rested the point of his chisel against the stone and tapped it with the mallet. "Go to the grove of Artemis." He'd never looked at her once during their entire conversation.

She murmured her thanks, then left him to his work.

It was only a short walk to the grove of Artemis, its cypress trees an island of vibrant green among the skeletal ash and lindens in their winter sleep. In the summer, the cypress would smell of woody, heady spices, but winter's chill had buried it under the scents of damp earth and rotting leaves. The record stones jutted from the ground like a titan's teeth.

There were so many names. Here and there, entries caught her eye — _Amyntas of Makedonia, suffering from sword wounds, healed after being licked clean by a pack of dogs_ — but none with her mother's name, or even names bearing the inscription 'of Sparta'. It was a rare Spartan who would leave Lakonia for anything other than glory.

More names. More odd treatments: snakes and boars' tongues, bear fat and chicken feet. And then she found an inscription notable for what it was missing than what it actually said: _—of Sparta, with child, seeking pity from the gods—_ Someone had carved out the rest.

She was staring at the obliterated stone when she felt someone approaching from behind.

"It is as I feared, then." The stone-cutting priest.

"What is someone trying to hide?"

"I'll tell you. Myrrine of Sparta, who arrived filthy and bleeding from her travels. We cared for her, gave her food, a bath. The child... could not be saved, though we tried everything we could. Where she went after, I do not know."

 _The child could not be saved._ After her encounters with Deimos, she begged to differ. Alexios was alive and unwell, and this priest was either a good liar, or believed the lie himself.

He went on. "I have something more for you. Meet me at sundown, near the Olive Tree of Herakles at the entrance of the sanctuary."

Footsteps sounded on the path into the grove behind them, and she turned to find another priest walking towards them.

"And what do we have here, a priest and a mercenary having a chat?" His manner was friendly, but his eyes were cold.

The stone-cutter cowered under the other priest's gaze. "May the gods be with you, Pleistos! I was just on my way to the archives when she bumped into me."

"Is that so? Might I ask what were you discussing so fervently?"

Kassandra took the opening. "The good priest here was teaching me how to heal sword wounds."

"And what is the treatment for sword wounds according to my friend?"

"You use dogs to lick the wounds clean," she answered.

"Very good! Don't give away all our tricks, Timoxenos. Who will bring offerings to the gods when our patients learn to heal themselves?"

"No, no, of course not," Timoxenos stammered. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must get to the archives." He bowed, then hurried away. He had placed himself in a great deal of danger to seek her out.

"You have your treatment, Eagle Bearer. Now please leave the Sanctuary. We have nothing else for you here."

"A shame to find a place of healing so unwelcome," she said, giving him an exaggerated bow. "But it shall be as you ask."

The Sanctuary was no longer safe for her to travel openly, but there was much she could do from the shadows. The long night of winter would provide them to her soon enough. She returned to the stable where she'd picketed Phobos, mounted up, and disappeared into the forest.

A little before sundown, she watched the Olive Tree of Herakles in the evening light, waiting to see if Timoxenos would arrive as he'd promised.

She saw him walking up the road, and met him beneath the branches of the enormous tree. He pulled a piece of white fabric out from inside his robes.

"Your mother left a blanket behind. We tried to return it, but she said it was too painful a memory." He held it out. "Take it."

She did, and her hands shook as she beheld a blanket she hadn't seen in twenty years. White fabric had turned dirty grey, stained with streaks of rust and brown. She remembered her mother's fingers tucking that fabric around her baby brother the night the Elder priest and the guards came for them. "How did you get this?" she asked, as she folded the blanket and slid it carefully inside her armor.

"I took it from the archi—" His eyes suddenly widened as he spotted something behind her. "Oh, no."

She turned. It was the priest who'd threatened her earlier, Pleistos, along with a burly-looking guard.

"So, Chrysis was right," Pleistos said. "You knew the rules, Timoxenos. You will suffer her wrath."

Kassandra pushed Timoxenos against the tree. "Stay behind me," she said, shifting position so he stood between her and the tree's massive trunk. Keeping him alive would complicate matters.

Pleistos pulled a dagger from his belt, and the guard hefted a poleaxe. She drew her spear and launched it at the priest in one smooth movement. Risky, but her reward was the sound of a gurgled gasp that let her focus on charging the guard. His body was already twisting back into a swing.

The head of the poleaxe slid into view, and then she was inside its reach, with her sword held high. The handle of the axe slammed against her armor as she chopped down at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. The impact of the axe handle against her ribs stole her breath and dropped her to her knees, but the guard went down with her, his head flopping over at an unnatural angle. She pulled her sword clear, and staggered to her feet and over to Pleistos.

Her spear jutted out from the priest's throat, and as her fingers wrapped around its handle, the blood craving wrapped her in its pleasures. Her ribs no longer ached and she smiled down at the dying man and said, "You chose poorly," as she pulled the blade from his neck.

Timoxenos appeared at her shoulder. "They would have killed us both."

She nodded, only half-listening as she bent down and used the point of her spear to sweep the guard's cloak aside. His armor was heavy and angular, stamped with an insignia of twined snakes.

The Cult. The pieces were beginning to fit into place.

She turned to Timoxenos. "You're no longer safe here. Do you have someplace you can go?"

"This is the only home I have."

"Then go to Hippokrates's clinic, and wait there while I deal with Chrysis. But first, I need a favor."

"Name it."

"Which room in the guesthouse is Mydon's?"

"Mydon? He's well guarded!" He looked down at her bloody armor and weapons. "But you won't have any trouble, I suppose. His chambers are the largest in the back of the building."

She gave him her thanks, then looked back at the lights of the Sanctuary flickering in the twilight. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed the men she'd killed were missing and raised an alarm.

That could not happen before she found Mydon.

She stowed her sword and spear and broke into a run, heading for the forest, the blood on her skin drying slowly in the cold wind.

.oOo.

The guesthouse was guarded, as Timoxenos had said it would be, with two sentries at the main entrance, one at the side entrance, and one at the servants' entrance. All wearing bright armor with Cult insignias.

She climbed the wall that shielded the servants' entrance from sight, high enough to sneak a look. The guard she'd seen in the doorway earlier was no longer there, perhaps on patrol within the building, or off having a piss. No matter; it only made things easier. She levered herself over the edge and dropped down the other side, wincing as the landing jarred her ribs. She kept in a crouch and moved to the wall to the right of the door. Then she held her breath and listened.

Footsteps on tile. Heavy. A man's tread approaching the door.

Her fingers closed around a stone and she stood up slowly, flattening herself against the wall. Most people looked to the right when they passed through an open doorway; a distraction would ensure this man did.

She tossed the stone as the footsteps reached the threshold, heard the clack as it landed and a sudden indrawn breath, and then the man stepped through the doorway looking away from her. She was on him in an instant, her spear opening his throat and her weight forcing him to the ground to keep him from thrashing.

The servants' foyer was dark and silent. A doorway on the other side opened into an atrium. She could see no other halls. Every guestroom would open to the atrium directly.

She hid within the shadows in the foyer and looked out across the atrium. Benches covered with pillows, lit braziers, delicate vases. All the trappings of hospitality, except for the armed guard standing watch next to a set of ornate double doors. The atrium was too open, the angles too poor for her to sneak up on him. She could use her spear to kill him, but leaving any blood in the open would be risky. There was no way to tell if all the guests had returned to their rooms for the night.

Sounds at the main entrance, followed by movement, as a young servant woman walked into the atrium carrying a jug. She walked up to the guard, exchanged quiet words, and then Kassandra heard the sound of the doors opening.

That was all the distraction she needed. She came up behind him as he was closing the doors, and as he turned back around she chopped him hard across his throat with the edge of her hand. She caught him as he fell, covered his mouth with one hand and hooked her arm under him, and dragged him back through the servants' foyer, dumping him next to the other guard's body. The strangled choking sounds he made gave her pause, and she knifed him quickly in the throat. She'd shed no tears for Cultists, but asphyxiation was a hard way to go.

Her path back to the doors was clear, and she opened them and slipped inside.

She found the young woman and the old priest in the middle of an embrace, so distracted with themselves that they didn't notice her come out from the shadows and lean up against a nearby wall. She folded her arms and watched them kiss and paw at each other. At this rate, she'd end up seeing something she absolutely didn't want to.

She cleared her throat.

The woman whirled around. "Guards!"

Kassandra examined her bloody fingernails. "They're dead," she said simply. She looked at the priest. "And you must be Mydon."

He let out a disconcerting moan. So she'd been told at least one true thing while she'd been in the Sanctuary.

"He doesn't speak," the servant said. Apparently she was used to speaking for him.

"So I've heard. I'm here to find out why."

"Chrysis did this to him."

"I thought he did this to himself."

"To prove his loyalty to her!"

"Now why would Chrysis want an Elder priest to cut out his tongue?"

"Mydon is a caring, generous man!"

"I don't care what kind of man he is. And now I want answers from him, not you." She fixed her gaze upon him. "Do you remember Myrrine of Sparta, and the baby she brought here years ago?"

He nodded. _Yes._

"Did you save the baby?"

_No._

"Did she tell you where she was going after?"

_No._

She put together all the pieces she'd gathered. "I know why Chrysis made you cut out your tongue. The night my mater brought my brother here, you and your priests thought he was dead. And Chrysis didn't want you telling the story because she took the baby, didn't she? She made you cut out your tongue to hide the truth."

_Yes. Yes. Yes._

"Mydon told me how the Spartan woman wept. Held the baby in her arms, sang to him, before finally leaving him to the gods."

"But Chrysis took him instead. Where is she?"

"There's an altar and a small temple near the statue of Apollo Maleatas, up on the bluff overlooking the valley. People take their sick babies there to be healed."

Mydon's eyes glistened with tears, and he clasped his hands together, bowed his head, and tried to speak. None of it was understandable.

Kassandra was suddenly tired of this place and its desperation. "People come to this Sanctuary to be healed — but I come here and find people dying without hope, priests without tongues, and babies left with a madwoman."

She would cut out this sickness at its source.

.oOo.

It was a long, hard climb to the top of the bluff, and once she reached the altar that stood upon it, she smelled blood clotting in the cold breeze. Someone had killed a golden eagle and left it splayed across the top of the altar. It wasn't Ikaros, she knew, but the threat was close enough. The anger she'd kept sheathed within her since she arrived at the Sanctuary pulled itself free and lanced into her blood, bright and burning.

The clouds overhead looked as if a giant beast had riven them with its claws, and moonlight filtered through their torn edges. The wind jostled the dead eagle's feathers. She scanned the top of the bluff, looking for the temple.

She only found a worn path leading away from the altar into the forest.

Suddenly the breeze picked up, and brought with it the sound of a baby crying. Her mind knew it was a trap, but her heart accelerated anyway, and she started running up the path, following the sound.

Nyx had stolen the color from the forest, cut the trees into slashes of black and the underbrush to mottled granite. Beams of light slanted through the cutouts and sparkled in droplets of water scattered by her passage.

Her heart drummed in perfect, relentless time, and her breath came easily, fueling her long muscles to plant, and push, plant, and push as the path gently curved, and the forest thinned, and she saw orange specks of light bobbing in the far distance.

The path opened into a small clearing, and she felt the attackers before she saw them, twisting aside as a dark form dropped from the tree above her. A blade whipped past her ear and smashed into the armor across her left shoulder. Fire bloomed in the joint, shooting tendrils of pain up her neck and down into her chest. She dropped to the ground and rolled into the underbrush, heard the smack of metal against the dirt where she'd just been, and she kicked out, feeling her greave sink into meaty flesh.

She rolled again, then climbed to her feet with her spear in her good hand. There were two armored outlines in front of her, swords glinting, one with a shield and the other dual-wielding a dagger. She swapped her spear to her left hand, biting back a hiss as fire cascaded down her arm, and drew her sword with her right. Pain could be ignored, pushed aside. She'd let her anger fill its place.

She backpedaled, drawing them into the trees. Shield and Dagger. Shield was limping, and she edged around to his weak side, her senses open and ready. His sword-arm tensed, and she backpedaled another step, putting tree branches between her and Dagger and making Shield come to her. His sword sliced down in a silver arc and she raised her spear to meet it. Their blades clashed, and then she sank down instead of pushing back against him, letting his follow-through pull him off-balance above her as she swung her sword around and cut his legs out from under him.

The momentum from her swing lifted her upwards, and she bounced to her feet with her weapons raised in time to deflect a rapid series of sword and dagger strikes.

Her opponent was good. Disciplined. Moved like a woman, with a woman's fluid quickness. They traded attacks: quick, testing strikes. Kassandra kept moving, kept circling, and she could feel the winds shift around them as they moved between the trees. She sensed stillness behind her, and she stepped back, back, inviting the arc of the woman's sword, waiting for commitment to the swing. She ducked. The sword bit deep into the trunk of the tree, and Kassandra's spear sank deep into the woman's side, just above her belt. The woman died with a sigh, as if surprised by the sudden turn of events.

Kassandra took a few steadying breaths and let the warm wave of satisfaction lave the jagged edges of pain in her shoulder smooth. She'd been careless. She shook off the memory of metal whipping past her ear.

As her heartbeat settled and its pounding in her ears faded, she could hear the baby's cry louder than ever, coming from the temple that was now visible through the trees, its columns haloed in torchlight.

She kept her weapons unsheathed as she approached, and she paused before its heavy wooden doors. Stillness, but for the baby's desperate wails.

The doors opened reluctantly, and she ignored the flare of pain as she pushed them apart and stepped into the temple, breathing in the heavy scent of incense. The air felt strangely greasy.

A small marble altar sat at the back of the chamber, its surface strewn with dried flowers and a few scattered oil lamps. Behind the altar stood Chrysis, with the baby cradled in her arms. The priestess's eyes glittered as they lingered on Kassandra's bloody weapons.

"Killing seems to run in your bloodline, oh mighty Kassandra."

"Keep my name out of your mouth, snake."

"I still remember the night your mother brought me my child. So sad and pathetic, crying in the rain. Had I known then that Myrrine had two children... but, here you are. My family is complete."

" _Your_ family is built from lies. You let my mother believe her baby was dead."

"But he was. How she wept after his little heart stopped beating. But then _I_ took care of him. Placed him on this very altar. Screamed for the gods to spare his life. And they listened."

Kassandra took a step closer. "What did you do with my brother?"

"I saved his life. By teaching him to suffer. To know pain so well that he would learn to welcome it like an old friend. And now, he will teach all of the Greek world to know that pain."

"You... tortured a child?" Kassandra didn't want to believe what she was hearing, but it explained too much not to be true. Her fingers tightened around the handle of the spear, and white-hot pain seared within her shoulder.

"I taught him to survive! This world is cruel. It demands strength, or death. So I gave him strength." Chrysis rocked the baby in her arms. "That's something your weakling of a mother could never do. I let her crawl off to Korinth, but that's before I knew about your bloodline." Her eyes returned to Kassandra, looking at her hungrily. "But she can't hide forever. She will give us more children."

"I'll run my spear through your throat before that happens. And you'll pay for all the pain you've caused my family."

Chrysis threw back her head in laughter. "This _world_ is pain. I gave Deimos strength to cope while your mother whined to the gods like a pig on an altar. I'm more a mother to Deimos than she ever was. I can be a mother to you, too, Kassandra."

"You're insane. You bring nothing but suffering."

"You talk of suffering and yet look at you now, drenched in blood. How many did you kill just to come here?" Those mad, piercing eyes stared at her. "Tell me, Kassandra, do you enjoy it?"

For once, Kassandra had nothing to say.

Chrysis smiled benevolently. "You're a killer, just like your brother. Here, let me show you." She placed the baby on the altar, then swept the lamps to the floor before Kassandra could move.

The entire chamber went up in a fireball. Kassandra threw her arms in front of her face as the wave of heat enveloped her — and swirling out from that heat came great howls of laughter. The mad priestess meant for Kassandra to choose: the baby, or her vengeance.

She waded into the inferno, its hot teeth gnawing at her as she looked for the altar. She almost ran into it before she saw its outline through the smoky flames, and she scooped the baby into her arms and dashed out the back doors into fresh air.

Chrysis was long gone, as she'd expected, and she kept running until she felt grass under her feet and the heat from the burning temple faded to warmth. Then her legs gave out and she stumbled to her knees, barely able to hang on to the baby cradled in her good arm. The shawl she wore over her armor was singed and smoking. She lifted the baby closer, and tentatively pulled its wrapping away from its face.

The baby was a boy, and he looked as if he'd frozen solid, his eyes scrunched shut and his mouth wide, and for a moment Kassandra feared the worst. But then his eyes snapped open — eyes of wet, milky blue that drifted around without focus -- and he took a breath, and then another. He began to wriggle, and then fuss. "Hey, little one. It's okay," she murmured.

Kassandra knelt there, scorched and aching in the moonlight, and she rocked the baby in her arms, and began to sing him a song.


End file.
